I am a cultural anthropologist (MSc.), economist (BSc.) and teacher-trainer Spanish (BSc., teaching credential) with more than 25 years of working experience in an international and intercultural context, as a trainer and consultant in Europe and developing countries. I provide global entrepreneurship services to business development & training institutions and private companies. 

I get my inspiration from having lived and worked in an international and intercultural environment throughout my life.

Living and working abroad

During my childhood I lived in Suriname (Latin America), a former colony of the Netherlands. It was there that I learned about a multi ethnic society with people from various cultures living together.

During my studies Cultural Anthropology, I developed my passion for Latin America and Spain. I did research in a small village in Andalucía, southern Spain, where the villagers opposed against the power of the ‘latifundistas’, the large landowners in the region. 

Later, I lived for a while in a Colombian farmers family, a coffee grower in the North-Eastern part of Colombia. There, I gained experience on co-operatives and their specific characteristics.

In 1991 I lived for three years in Zambia, Africa. I worked with youngsters that learned to become entrepreneurs after their vocational training. Here I skilled myself in being a trainer and business advisor and how to train basic (entrepreneurial) skills to young people and let them experience entrepreneurship by action learning training methods.

When I returned to the Netherlands, I started to work for a couple of years with migrant entrepreneurs. I then returned to training and consultancy work by working for eight years for a consultancy firm in SME development in Europe and developing countries, mainly in Africa. I worked on various assignments in Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia.

Since 2009 I am an entrepreneur myself and run my business Españu Global. 

Sharing knowledge and experience

I very much like to work and collaborate with organisations and entrepreneurs that are open minded and willing to learn new insights and are prepared to critically assess their own operations and own behaviour, so that they will improve in doing business across national and cultural borders.

I like to share my experience with working with people from different (cultural) backgrounds in different work-related situations, such as working in a cross-cultural team, managing such a team, train and coach entrepreneurs, trainers, teachers.